Canary Creams and New Yellow Paint - (DRARRY)

Chapter Four

"You could've just sent it with an owl," Draco says. "Sit down. This will take a while."

"I'm far less likely to be driven mad from boredom if I don't sit," Potter says, but he drops into one of the uncomfortable, leather-upholstered chairs across from Draco anyway and drums his fingers on the armrest.

Draco turns the prosthetic eye over in his hand carefully, checking for any potential problems with Potter's paint job.

"Brown," Draco says. "Wizardingkind will despair."

"Well, like you said, they'd never match. I thought I should create something new instead of trying to replace it."

Easy enough to say, harder in practice. He's seen patients struggle with that before.

Draco grabs his Reveliospecs and flicks down the first lens so he can focus on the spellwork he's weaving over the eye. "You don't have to stay. I won't have a good alibi if this ends up hurting you, so I'm very unlikely to curse it."

"Are you kicking me out, or just letting me know?"

"The latter."

"Then I'll stay."

It's slow work. When Draco was first training for this job, he hadn't imagined working on anyone he knew personally. He had been wary, too, of the complexity of the spellwork he'd have to learn. His hands had shaken for many years after the war — damage sustained from a few too many encounters with the Cruciatus Curse.

It had functioned as a sort of rehabilitation, to learn to master the soft, precise movements necessary to cast these enchantments. His father had been the first person to teach Draco magic as a child, and that had shaped the way Draco cast all throughout Hogwarts, but his techniques were too harsh for this line of work.

Your hands look just like your father's, Draco's mother had said. He still worries, sometimes, that hands like these can never learn how to be gentle.

He'd been scared to handle Scorpius when he was an infant. I'll hurt him, Draco had insisted.

Astoria had bundled Scorpius into his arms and pressed a kiss to Draco's cheek. It's better to have a father that's scared of dropping you than one that never picks you up.

Now, Draco can manage the kind of complicated, little motions these spells require. He just wishes they didn't take so long. Potter watches him silently.

The paint job on the eye is impressive, all delicate strokes and cautious shading, nothing like Potter himself. The browns have been layered painstakingly to provide a sense of depth. Draco can't shake the sensation that he's weaving his charms over something that's already a part of Potter.

Every time he closes a gap, three more appear. If he simply does this the way he usually would, his magic and Potter's will feud. He has to introduce his spellwork like a fish to new water, letting it acclimate before he drops it in.

An hour later, Draco's left hand cramps, and he has to stop to massage it. It's always been worse than his right. The tail ends of Draco's Colour Distinction Enchantment slither away before he can tie them off. He puffs out a breath of exasperation.

"You enjoy this," Potter says suddenly.

Draco glances up to find Potter staring at him, and forgets whatever he was about to say.

Threads of magic shoot out from Potter's body in every direction, a golden, buttery yellow. They climb up his torso like vines. For a second, Draco is watching him dive after the Snitch at Hogwarts again, wind pushing back his hair, drenched in sunlight and laughing. That Potter scarcely lines up with this one, but something about the moment sends Draco's heart spinning. He's never seen this much magic coming from one person before.